Various

“ I'm glad my name is Arthur, anyhow, for Arthur means noble and high," he said, lifting his bright boyish face with its steadfast blue eyes, and glancing again towards his mother. She gave an answering smile.
"I hope my boy will always be noble and high in thought and deed. But, as papa said, to be a hero one does not need to fight, at least, not to fight men. We can fight bad tempers and bad thoughts and cowardly impulses. They who fight these things successfully are the truest heroes, my boy."
"Ah, but mamma, didn't I hear you tell grandmamma how you were proud of your hero. ”

“ Smerdis and the slaves saw the lad straighten himself in the saddle, and with a shout, dash at full speed towards the spot where the fawn had vanished. He had almost reached it when the stiff stalks shook violently, and a loud roar made them all spring to their feet. They saw the brave boy check his horse and fit an arrow to the string, but as he drew the bow, there was a stronger rustle among the reeds; a tawny object flashed through the air, striking Otanes from his saddle, while the horse free from its rider, dashed, snorting with terror, towards the park entrance.
"A lion! A lion!" ”

“ For her brother was a soldier, too, and not afraid to die;
And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name,
To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame,
And to hang the old sword in its place, my father's sword and mine;
For the honor of old Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine.
"There's another, not a sister, in the happy days gone by,
You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye;
Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning,
O, friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning. ”

“ Owing to the smallness of the stage, it was difficult for the horse who was to make the jump to get under headway, and several times poor Sprite, or whichever it was, would turn abruptly to make another start, upon which every horse on her side would dart out for a chance at giving her a nip as she went by. They all seemed throughout the entire exhibition to feel a sort of responsibility, or at least a pride in it, as if "this is our school. See how well Bucephalus minds, or how badly Brutus behaves! This is our regiment. Don't we march well? How fine and grand, how gallant and gay we are!" ”

“ There was hardly any one left in town but old men, women and children.
Mrs. Heath thought of this as she soothed Dorothy, coaxed her to eat a little supper, and then sat by her side until she fell asleep. She sat by the fire while the embers died out, or walked up and down the long, lonely kitchen, wrestling, like Jacob, in prayer, for her boy, until long after midnight.
And now let us follow Arthur's fortunes. The men galloped hard and long over hills, through valleys and woods, so far away it seemed to the little fellow he could never possibly see mamma or Dorothy again. ”

“ He sent his wages every month to his parents; and he never ceased to wonder at the discontent of the Prince.
"They grow so slow," the Prince would say, wrinkling up his handsome forehead. "I expected to have a bushelful of new toys every month; and not one have I had yet. And these stingy old Monks say I can only have my usual Christmas share anyway, nor can I pick them out myself. I never saw such a stupid place to stay in my life. I want to have my velvet tunic on and go home to the palace and ride on my white pony with the silver tail, and hear them all tell me how charming I am." ”

“ Just about the prettiest sight in the world is the bed of wax dolls in the garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time. Of course ever since this convent and garden were established (and that was so long ago that the wisest man can find no books about it) their glories have attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity from the young people in the surrounding country; but as the garden is enclosed on all sides by an immensely thick and high hedge, which no boy could climb, or peep over, they could only judge of the garden by the fruits which were parceled out to them on Christmas-day. ”

“ Madge cooked the simple meals, and Little Stumps clung to her dress with his little pinched brown hand wherever she went, while Jim whooped it over the hills and chased jack-rabbits as if he were a greyhound. He would climb trees, too, like a squirrel. And, oh!—it was deplorable—but how he could swear!
At length some of the miners, seeing the boy must come to some bad end if not taken care of, put their heads and their pockets together and sent the children to school. ”

“ The Christmas Monks are a jolly brethren; the robes of their order are white, gilded with green garlands, and they never are seen out at any time of the year without Christmas wreaths on their heads. Every morning they file in a long procession into the chapel to sing a Christmas carol; and every evening they ring a Christmas chime on the convent bells. They eat roast turkey and plum pudding and mince-pie for dinner all the year round; and always carry what is left in baskets trimmed with evergreen to the poor people. ”

“ The horsemen quickly vanished, and for a moment Dorothy stood pale and speechless. Then she knelt down by Cæsar, examined his wound—he was shot in the leg—and bound it up with her handkerchief, just as she saw Basha do the night before, and then putting her arms around his neck she kissed him. "Be patient, dear old Cæsar, and Abram shall come for you!"
Covered with dust, her frock stained with Cæsar's blood, a pitiful sight indeed was Dorothy as she burst into the kitchen where Basha was preparing supper.
"O mamma, they've carried off Arty and shot Cæsar, those dreadful, dreadful British!" ”

“ It was simply impossible to launch a boat. The vast fields of ice, two or three feet in thickness, and from twenty feet to a hundred yards in breadth, were crushing and grinding down the river at the rate of four or five miles an hour, turning and twisting about, sometimes jamming their edges together with so great a force that one would lap over another, and sometimes drifting apart and leaving wide open spaces between for a moment or two. ”

“ He says, 'this is Jenny, and that is Dolly, there is Jim, and here's Nancy.' Oh, land, yes! they are no more alike than human beings are, disposition or anything. Some have to be ordered, and some coaxed and flattered. Yes, flattered. Now if two men come and want to work for me, I can tell as soon as I cast my eyes on them. I say to one, 'Go and do such a thing;' but if I said it to the other, he'd answer 'I won't; I'm not going to be ordered about by any man.' Horses are just like that. A horse can read you. If you get mad, he will. If you abuse him, he will do the same by you, or try to. ”

“ His father and mother were poor people; and Peter worked every minute out of school hours to help them along. Then he had a sweet little crippled sister whom he was never tired of caring for. Then, too, he contrived to find time to do lots of little kindnesses for other people. He always studied his lessons faithfully, and never ran away from school. Peter was such a good boy, and so modest and unsuspicious that he was good, that everybody loved him. He had not the least idea that he could get the place with the Christmas Monks, but the Prince was sure of it. ”

“ He'd diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!
When it came to the point he could never say "No!"
Then boys and girls who hear my song,
Pray heed its theme alarming:
Be good, be wise, be kind, be strong—
These traits are always charming,
But all your learning, all your skill
With well-trained brain and muscle,
Might just as well be left alone,
If you can't cultivate backbone
To help you in life's tussle,
And learn to say "No!" Yes, learn to say "No!" ”

“ Now you must know that a rattlesnake is not at all like a lion or a bear, although just as dangerous in its own way. It will not chase you; it can only spring a distance equal to its own length, and it has to wait and coil itself up in a ring, sounding its warning all the time, before it can strike at all. So if you are ever so little distance from it when you see it first, you can easily escape from it. The only danger is from stepping on it without seeing it. But Marland's snake was already coiled, and it was hardly more than a foot from the entrance to the kennel. ”

“ There are the most delicious little arched windows with diamond panes peeping out from the mistletoe and evergreen, and always at all times of the year, a little Christmas wreath of ivy and holly-berries is suspended in the centre of every window. Over all the doors, which are likewise arched, are Christmas garlands, and over the main entrance Merry Christmas in evergreen letters. ”

“ The old slave, a gray-haired, but muscular man, with several other attendants, joined the lads, and the long train passed out into the street and toward the city gates. Otanes hastily whispered to his brother: "Keep close by me, Smerdis; if only we catch sight of a lion, we'll show what we can do with bows and arrows."
The sun was now several hours high, and the streets, lined with tall brick houses, were crowded with people—artisans, slaves, soldiers, nobles and citizens, the latter clad in white linen shirts, gay woollen tunics and short cloaks. ”

“ Bartholomew. They like this least of any of their feats, and those who can do it best are most timid. At first one horse is jumped over, then two, three, are packed closely together, and little Sprite clears them all at one flying leap, broad-backed and much taller than herself though they are. Those who do not want to try it beg off by a pretty pantomime, and Sprite is encouraged by her master, who pats her first and seems to be saying something in her ear. They like to get approval in the way of a caress, but beyond that they are in no way rewarded. ”

“ But the abbot of the Christmas Monks had always maintained that there were two ways of looking at all things; if any object was not what you wanted it to be in one light, that there was another light in which it would be sure to meet your views.
So now he brought this philosophy to bear.
"This little girl did not come up in the place of the wax doll, and she is not a miracle in that light," said he; "but look at her in another light and she is a miracle—do you not see?" ”

“ There was a settle at right angles with the fireplace, and here the little cooks sat, Dorothy in the corner nearest the fire, and Arthur curled up on the floor at her feet, where he could look up the chimney and see the moon, almost at the full, drifting through the sky. At the opposite corner sat Abram, the hired man and faithful keeper of the family in the absence of its head, at work on an axe helve, while Bathsheba, or "Basha," as she was briefly and affectionately called, was spinning in one corner of the room just within range of the firelight. ”

“ And certainly, in the whole of his adventurous life the captain was never more taken by surprise; for there, crouched in one corner, was that precious Indian infant.
Yes, true it was, that all those massive timbers, all that ponderous mass of rock, had only availed to capture one very small Ute pappoose. At the thought of it, the builder of the trap was astounded. He laughed aloud at the absurdity. In silence he threw off the rock and lid and seated himself on the edge of the open trap. Captor and captive then gazed at each other with gravity. ”

“ They should have full liberty to poke their noses in their master's face, or lay their heads on his shoulder at meal-time, receiving their treat of lettuce or sugar or bread, only they must understand that they would be punished if they knocked off the vases or upset furniture, or did other mischief. He would like to see this tried, and see what would come of it; what intelligence a horse would develop, and what love. ”

“ Did you ever think what a complexity of muscles, bones, joints, tendons and other arrangements, enter into the formation of the knees, hoofs, legs of a horse; what a piece of mechanism the strong, supple creature is? ”

“ When at last Joe leaped ashore in company with the woman, and bearing her babe in the basket on his back, the people seemed ready to trample upon each other in their eagerness to shake hands with their hero.
Their hero was barely able to stand, however. Drenched as he had been in the icy river, the sharp March wind had chilled him to the marrow, and one of the village doctors speedily lifted him into his carriage which he had brought for that purpose, and drove rapidly away, while the other physician took charge of Mrs. Martin and the baby. ”

“ Many horses are superior to many men; nobler, more honorable, quicker-witted, more loyal, and a thousand times more companionable. Would you not rather, if you had to live on Robinson Crusoe's island, have an intelligent, sympathetic horse and a devoted bright dog than some people you know? One is inclined to favor Hamerton's notion after seeing the Bartholomew Educated Horses, who can do almost anything but speak. ”

“ Grand River, which is a narrow but deep and violent stream, ran roaring and plunging beneath the masses of ice as if enraged at being so obstructed; but the lad picked his path in safety and soon stood on the opposite bank. ”

“ If he is my horse, he will do it.' The Indian said, 'You shall have him if he does, but he won't!' By this time a crowd had got together. We put the horse in an enclosure, he did as he was told, and I had him back."
Mr. Bartholomew said, "My motto in educating them is, 'Make haste slowly;' I never require too much, and I never ask a horse to do what he can't do. That is of no use. A horse can't learn what horses are not capable of learning; and he can't do a thing until he understands what you mean, and how you want it done. ”

“ THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS.
heir mother had died crossing the plains, and their father had had a leg broken by a wagon wheel passing over it as they descended the Sierras, and he was for a long time after reaching the mines miserable, lame and poor.
The eldest boy, Jim Keene, as I remember him, was a bright little fellow, but wild as an Indian and full of mischief. The next eldest child, Madge, was a girl of ten, her father's favorite, and she was wild enough too. The youngest was Stumps. Poor, timid, starved Little Stumps! ”